Welcome! This is “Staying In,” a Sunday newsletter with recipe ideas for your week ahead. Every other Thursday I also publish a “Going Out” edition where I review a restaurant, bar, or activity here in Portland. What should I write about next? Feel free to leave a comment on this post or submit your idea here. And don’t forget to check out pdxrecs.com for even more recommendations. Enjoy!
I hope you’re staying up until 11 p.m. every night to watch the Paris Olympics. My takeaways thus far are: it’s possible to win two gold medals in one day (if you are 22 and named Leon Marchand), water polo caps are a vibe, and the rugby haka is very cool.
The Opening Ceremonies were also a laugh riot. If you haven’t already, I recommend watching a few clips. A mysterious cloaked figure carried the Olympic torch, Snoop Dogg was everywhere, and there was an homage to the Last Supper that featured a semi-naked man in blue body paint. Was the choreographer high? We’ll never know.
Chef and fellow Substack author David Leibovitz lives in Paris and wrote of the opening ceremonies:
There was a wall of windows with headless Marie Antoinettes performing together with the French heavy metal band Gojira, which later erupted into strings of fake blood spurting into the Seine. A line-up of Parisian can-can dancers couldn’t. And a French accordion player, wearing a beret and blue-striped T-shirt, squeezed his way through the celebration perched on a bridge over the Seine, in good spirits, despite the rain. Fortunately, they gave the mimes the night off.
In honor of Paris’ Olympic games, this week I’m sharing a recipe from David Leibovitz’ book, Drinking French. Although the book mostly focuses on cocktails, the drinking snack recipes in the back are the true hidden gem. I’ll serve the dish—radishes with radish greens butter—alongside a rotisserie chicken that will be repurposed into tostadas the following day. Because rotisserie chicken is the gift that keeps on giving.
It’s also my mom AND brother’s birthday this week, so I’ll be making blueberry cobbler and ice cream for dessert. I do love a three-tiered frosted cake, but sometimes a sugar-crusted cobbler is the perfect ending to a summer birthday. It also helps that I have 6 pounds of blueberries in my freezer right now.
✨ Inspo ingredients for the week: radishes, chicken, and avocado ✨
DINNERS
Radishes with Radish Greens Butter and Baguette | Rotisserie Chicken | Arugula Salad
Shredded Chicken Tostadas | Salsa de Aguacate | Avocado and Cucumber Salad
Poke Bowls
Crisped Chickpeas with Herbs and Garlic Yogurt | Pita
LUNCH
BLTs
DESSERT
Blueberry Skillet Cobbler
Notes:
I shared the avocado and cucumber salad recipe a few weeks ago here and the crisped chickpeas as a lunch recipe here.
You can sub any fruit for blueberries in the cobbler.
Radishes with Radish Greens Butter
David Leibovitz | Drinking French
This is a clever way to use those radish greens that normally go immediately into the compost bin (or trash! gasp!). You can spread this butter onto the radishes themselves for a little radish-on-radish action or onto pieces of baguette with a nice topping of flaky sea salt.
To make the butter, briefly boil the radish leaves, plunge into ice water, squeeze, and then pulse in a food processor along with butter, salt, pepper, and garlic.
I’m serving this alongside rotisserie chicken for dinner, but this makes a great snack if you have guests over for a glass of wine. I don’t think I’ve ever done that, but I should!
Shredded Chicken Tostadas
This is a “pile everything onto a fried tortilla” recipe. You can absolutely modify however you see fit.
INGREDIENTS
Canola Oil
Corn Tortillas
Canned Black Refried Beans, warmed
White Onion, diced
Cilantro, chopped
Radish, sliced for serving
Lime, for serving
Shredded Rotisserie Chicken
Salsa de Aguacate (see below), for serving
DIRECTIONS
Place a thin layer of canola oil in a cast iron skillet or dutch oven. Heat over medium-high. You’ll know the oil is ready if when you dip a tortilla and see bubbles form immediately. If you see smoke, it’s too hot.
Fry one minute on each side until golden brown.
Transfer to a paper-towel lined plate and sprinkle with a little bit of kosher salt. Repeat with remaining tortillas.
Spread a layer of refried beans over the tortilla. Pile the rest of the ingredients on top and eat.
Salsa de Aguacate
Esteban Castillo | Chicano Eats
Can’t stop won’t stop with the Chicano Eats recipes (have you bought the book yet?). This is a nice blend between a salsa verde and a guacamole. You’ll want to put in on all of your tacos in perpetuity.
Place avocados, garlic, chiles, tomatillo, lime, and cilantro into a blender with a little water, and you’re done. Here’s the full recipe.
Poke Bowls
Half-Baked Harvest
It feels wrong to share a Half-Baked Harvest recipe for a Hawaiian poke bowl in this newsletter. See: controversy. But TBH I googled “poke bowl” and this was the third-highest ranking recipe, and it sounds good so I went with it.
Poke traditionally should be super simple. The term “poke,” translates in Hawaiian to “chop” and is essentially a chopped tuna salad. You can find pre-marinated poke at most grocery stores and making a quick soy dressing is easy. Here’s a Serious Eats recipe from Kenji that’s probably better than what I’m going to make.
But I wanted a mayo-based, non-traditional version this week, so Half-Baked Harvest delivered. It calls for adding fried shallots (she calls them crumbs…. 🙄) on top, and I’m honestly excited to eat this.
Pita Bread
Chef John | All Recipes
Like tortillas and pasta, making pita bread from scratch ruins you for store-bought varieties. As long as you mix the dough early enough (this recipe from Chef John calls for a 2-hour rise time), getting fresh pita on the table for dinner can be cheap and easy. Combine with a simple yogurt-based meal like the chickpea one I link in the intro or something like this, and you have yourself a weeknight meal plus leftovers for lunch the next day.
To make the pita, dehydrate the yeast, mix the ingredients together until you form a smooth dough, let rise for two hours, form into round balls (Chef John’s method is oddly relaxing), press into circles, and heat on a cast iron skillet.
You will keep coming back to this recipe. I promise.
Skillet Blueberry Cobbler
Bon Appetit
I meannnn. Look at it! The piercing blueberries. The oozing vanilla ice cream. The perfectly golden crust. Bring this to a potluck or make it for a little weeknight Olympics-watching treat.
Recipe from Bon Appetit here. If the “Kitchen is Closed,” here’s a similar recipe.
